I’m a terrible Bruin for not remembering Brandon Johnson! He’s probably the biggest example of someone making that event switch successfully. Interesting also that Johnson isn’t someone I would’ve picked with the eyeball test to be such a good 800 guy since I think he’s shorter than Rai and more muscled (at least from what I remember). Also curious if people know more about Johnson’s move to the 800 because from his WA progression, it seems like he took to it pretty quickly by running 1:46 in his first pro year going for it and then next year was 1:42 but there are some gaps between that and his 400 hurdle days that I’m curious about.
I hate to say it but that comparison makes a 1:43 much less likely for Rai Benjamin, because it shows that Brandon Johnson had much less speed, and hence, better endurance. What could Mark Everett run for 100/200? He ran 33.41 for 300m, while his endurance went up to 1k in 2:25. Pretty good for a 44.59 guy who ran 1:43 high that same year, 1991, and then ran 1:43 low the next year, 1992.
I hate to say it but that comparison makes a 1:43 much less likely for Rai Benjamin, because it shows that Brandon Johnson had much less speed, and hence, better endurance. What could Mark Everett run for 100/200? He ran 33.41 for 300m, while his endurance went up to 1k in 2:25. Pretty good for a 44.59 guy who ran 1:43 high that same year, 1991, and then ran 1:43 low the next year, 1992.
There isn’t remotely enough data to draw conclusions. Nobody would blink an eye at a 1:50 claim and we would all laugh at 1:39. 1:44 is in that range which is probably on the optimistic side of reasonable. But basically nobody who is top 5 in their event will bail on it in their prime for a totally different event.
Talk is cheap, but it is also not fun when someone who runs shorter distances gets moved up for the big relay meet AND beats your best time by 5 seconds!
I wonder if there has ever been a 1:44 guy who has run faster than 20.5 over 200m. Usually guys who move up well to 800m are those who have a slower 200m relative to their 400m. At 19.99 over 200m, Benjamin is significantly faster than other 400m hurdlers. Harald Schmidt has a 20.68 time for 200m and he managed to dip under 1:45. I looked for 200m times for Edwin Moses, Alberto Juantorena and Mark Everett and couldn't find anything. It would be groundbreaking for someone to go sub 20 for 200m and 1:44 over 800.
I always thought like some. that Jeremy Wariner had the perfect stride and build to run a blazing 800M, He ran one 1:53..that I could find. But, if you look at him, how easy would 50 flat feel..going by, he could surely get to 600M in world class time..then....The issue with 400M guys running 800M, is sprinters in general will gravitate to the shortest event possible to be effective.Look how many 45.x guys we have in this country that will never win ......none move up really, same with very good but not "team making" 400 IH guys.
I hope Rai avoids bicycling. Pro road cyclists frequently break bones. As I recall, 2011 Tour de France winner Cadel Evans fractured a collar bone three times in a year. Road cycling's risk : reward strikes me as unfavorable.
I’m surprised his coach/agent/sponsor is ok with him cycling in the offseason. Many athletes have clauses in their contract regarding injuries in non “sport” activities. Like when Aaron Boone tore his ACL playing basketball in the offseason. Maybe he is able to sell out as “cross training” even though he openly admits there is not any crossover between 50+ mile rides and sprinting on the track.
Cycling is a great activity but one bad crash could cost him a lot vs regular folk whose earnings are dependent on running super fast this summer.
But for me it's just the 800… if I really wanted to… I think if I seriously ran it I could probably run 1:44. But I mean, that's not going to win anything today.,,
Yeah, I mean there's no 800 in my future. It's just the training. I've seen the training for it and it's just not fun. So I popped in with Isaiah [Jewett] on a couple of workouts and it's a different level of lactate threshold.
Brandon wasn't very muscular, at least not at all bulky, and was incredibly lightfooted. Regarding his change to 800, he was very injury prone and it mainly seemed to be speedwork related. He had an amazing freshman year, I think lost most of his sophomore year and then either his junior or senior year he had success but I remember him missing a lot of workouts and doing a lot of strides instead. Also, he'd go on "long" runs in college, like a few miles in the evening. I don't know how frequently, but every now and then. So that's at least in part why he missed some time between collegiate 400H star and pro 800 runner. I don't anything about that timeframe, but I would assume he was figuring out that the speedwork just ruined his hammies and starting to find unexpected success over longer distances in practice.
We'd do an 800 time trial right before Thanksgiving every year and the best 400 guys would run 1:50-1:54. This is with no 800 training (longest things I remember were a 200-300-400-600-400-300-200 ? pyramid and we'd also do a 400 uphill time trial aiming for sub-60) and honestly a fair amount of laziness/disdain toward distances over a lap.
As for Rai, my frist thought was also Brandon, but Rai is definitely larger and I have no idea how much endurance background he has and how he'd handle lactate after 500m.
But for me it's just the 800… if I really wanted to… I think if I seriously ran it I could probably run 1:44. But I mean, that's not going to win anything today.,,
Yeah, I mean there's no 800 in my future. It's just the training. I've seen the training for it and it's just not fun. So I popped in with Isaiah [Jewett] on a couple of workouts and it's a different level of lactate threshold.
The difference is that Dobek was producing very solid 600 times (1:15-1:17) as a 46-low 400m runner early in his career. As Merber alluded to, Rai produced a 1:22 as a 47-low 400m guy, which isn't terrible but isn't indicative of nearly as much 800m promise as Dobek had. I guess you can caveat that the 1:22 wasn't an all-out effort, but that might be belied by him only winning by .4 in that race and then losing his senior year and only running 1:25.
Nobody in history with his world class sprint speed (Prs of 10.03, 19.99, and 44.21) has ever run a 1:44 800m
We have an unnaturally low talent pool, 800m, at least in U.S.
1) Read the aggregate posts on this site from self-identified T&F coaches. It is unlikely for 400m athletes who express desire to move up to 800m to be granted a cross-country exemption.
2) Would 400m athletes moving up to 800m be allowed to log very low mileage?
3) Four-hundred meters and 400mH are raced in lane the entire race. If 800m were raced with a four turn stagger, more 400m athletes would move up.
4) In middle school, high school and college D-3, 800m has a bad reputation. Often the worst T&F athletes on the team are placed in 800m races.
The fact that proven f.a.t. sub-20 200m men have not raced sub-1:45 does not mean sub-20 200m men are incapable of sub-1:45 800m. It simply means sub-20 200m men can make a living racing other events.
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